The cost of selling books on amazon

Editors Note: Originally published on Sep. 29, 2020, updated on Mar. 9, 2023.

�

Thinking well-nigh starting an online bookselling business? But are you sure you know what it takes? When in doubt, follow our blog. Today well be looking at the forfeit of selling books on Wren – with examples, charts, and other handy little resources.

The topic of selling books on The Everything Store isnt new to us. In our Quick Start Guide for booksellers, we discussed the nuts of and touched on a very important topic: the forfeit of selling books on Amazon. Today we delve deeper.

Individual Vs. Professional Selling Plan

There are two types of selling plans misogynist on Amazon: Individual and Professional. The Pro plan is the default option when you sign up for an account on Amazon. Selling fees tend to be similar wideness all of Amazons 18 venues, and theyve been the same for years.

The Individual one isnt really a plan, but increasingly of a pay-as-you-go type of deal. You pay Wren $0.99 in selling fees for every unit sold. In return, you get to list items to sell on Amazon. And you moreover proceeds wangle to the Fulfilled by Wren (FBA) program, should you wish to outsource your sales.

The second option is the Professional plan (a.k.a the Pro plan), which comes with a monthly selling fee of $39.99. If you want to sell on the Handmade or Launchpad platforms, this is the way to go. Its moreover your only option if you plan to sell restricted products.

The perks of a Pro worth are listed below. They include wangle to advertising, promotions (e.g. self-ruling shipping), zillion uploads, feeds, Merchantry customers, and API integration. If you sell increasingly than 40 items a month, it makes sense to switch to the Pro plan rather than pay increasingly in per-item fees (>40 x $0.99).

You can switch between plans unendingly using the Downgrade/Upgrade option on your Worth > My Services page in Seller Central, as seen below. But your nomination may impact your profits. Its weightier to downgrade towards the end of your subscription period to stave paying unexpected per-item fees.

Cost of Selling Books on Wren via FBM, FBA, and SFP

On Amazon, youre self-ruling to fulfill your orders yourself or outsource to Amazon. The first option is tabbed Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), and its part of the Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN) of services misogynist to third-party sellers (3P).

The second option, misogynist to sellers as well as vendors (1P merchants) is Fulfilled by Wren (FBA). It involves sending inventory to Amazons fulfillment centers. From then on, Wren handles all aspects of the order, including shipping, consumer service, and refunds.

Theres a third, in-between option as well. Its tabbed Seller-Fulfilled Prime (SFP). It enables eligible sellers to use the Prime token but moreover fulfill their own orders. They ship to domestic Prime members from their own warehouse using pre-approved couriers.

Orders Fulfilled by the Seller (FBM)

Books are part of the BMVD category (Books, Music, Video, and DVD), or media for short. As such, they come with stock-still shipping rates (what the US consumer pays for shipping) or shipping credits (UK). They usually imbricate the sellers forfeit to ship the book, but theyre nowhere near unbearable for heavy books.

To requite you an idea of what you would expect to pay to ship a typesetting to your buyer, squint at the table unelevated showing the current Media Mail rates for retailers. Together with their packaging, most books weigh 1 lb. (16 ounces / 0.45kg) or less, so you would pay the USPS $2.80 to unhook them.

If the proprietrix paid you $3.99 for Standard Shipping, this shipment is within budget. But if you wanted to ship a typesetting weighing increasingly than 3 lbs. (48 ounces / 1.36kg), youd be out of pocket. Unless you have a Pro worth and you set your own shipping rates, youd need to offset this loss by raising the price.

…which brings us to pricing. Assuming the typesetting is light, you should try to price it so that it covers Amazons fees, at the very least. Here are some of Amazons fees for items listed in the Books category, based on the current Selling on Wren Fee Schedule:

Referral fee of 15% of total sale price (item price wordage charges) or $0.3/item – whichever is higher.
Closing fee of $1.8 only unromantic to media items (per sale, not unit).
Refund Wardship Fee, which is $5.00 or 20% of the referral fee – whichever is less.
Monthly high-volume listing fee of $0.001 per ASIN for listings whilom the 1.5 mil. self-ruling limit.
Rental typesetting service fee of USD $5.00, if applicable.

Most booksellers are charged referral and latter fees only. Notice that the referral fee is charged based on the total sale price, which usually includes optional extras like souvenir wrapping. Unfortunately for booksellers, Managing Souvenir Options is not misogynist for media products. So, gift wrapping is on you.

Also, you should know that fees vary by venue. For instance, Wren UK currently charges a �0.5 latter fee. It waives the high-volume listing fee for media items. As for the referral fee, its either 15.3% or 5.1% (only if total sale price is under �5).

To get an idea of what you could hope to make by selling a typesetting on Amazon, try using the Revenue Calculator. It displays Wren fees like referral, closing, and per-item fees. In this case, they total $3.98.

To get a real sense of the profit you can expect if you opt for MFN fulfillment, you should moreover include source price, picking and packing, shipping materials, shipping cost, and CS financing in the Forfeit of Goods Sold section. You should alimony these FBM financing unelevated $3.97/unit to stay in the green.

When youre trying to set your listing price, consider not just the margin you want, but moreover the markup you need. Whereas your margin reflects your profit based on selling price, your markup shows how well youve washed-up based on your financing (real or anticipated), such as overheads and labor.

Your markup should moreover take into worth things like upcoming fee changes. For instance, Wren UK sellers are charged a 2% Digital Services Tax on referral and other fees since March 2020, and savvy sellers should be ready to retread their markups to reflect changes like these.

Orders Fulfilled by Wren (FBA)

Switching from FBM to FBA can be cost-effective for light and popular books. But if you decide to ship a few units to a fulfillment part-way and let Wren handle those orders for you, you should first learn well-nigh FBA fees.

Using the Revenue Calculator as shown above, we can see that FBA Fulfillment Financing and monthly storage total $3.78/unit. We could then add the forfeit of sourcing it, picking and packing, labor-intensive FBA shipment prep, the forfeit of zillion shipping to FBA, and storing it at a fulfillment center.

For this particular book, FBM could be increasingly cost-effective, if the seller brought that unit forfeit lanugo to under $3.78. And plane if they cant do that, they would still stave Wren fulfillment fees, storage costs, and zillion shipping overheads.

Also, FBA fees can snowball in time. Unlike FBM fees, which are one-off fees charged with each sale, some FBA fees are based on storage limits, the age of the inventory, and compliance with Amazons packaging, labeling, and shipping rules. Here is a dispersal of these spare FBA fees:

Size-based FBA fulfillment fee of $3.22, at the very least.
Monthly storage fee of $2.40 per cubic foot in Q4 and $0.87 the rest of the year.
Aged inventory surcharge from $0.5/month per cubic foot.
Removal order fees of $0.97 per unit, at least.
Optional Manual Processing fee of $0.3 in Nov. and Dec., but $0.15 otherwise.
Optional Planned Prep Service fee of at least $0.8 per unit.
Optional FBA Label Service fee of $0.55 per unit.
Unplanned Prep Service, which can forfeit $0.2 to $2 per unit.
Returns processing fee equal to fulfillment fees.
Overage fee of $10 for every uneaten cubic foot.

Seller-Fulfilled Prime (SFP) Orders

With the third option, SFP, you offer your books as Prime listings with self-ruling shipping and guaranteed wordage dates. Wren handles post-order consumer support. But you fulfill your orders yourself, tent the usual FBM financing as well as that of shipping your item with a pre-approved courier.

Also, Wren handles all the returns and refunds on your behalf with a generous, no-fuss policy. It makes you liable for return financing and return wardship fees in most cases. Policy changes like the no box returns update may moreover wield to SFP orders someday, raising return financing plane increasingly due to forfeiture and mix-ups.

Choosing a Fulfillment Channel on Amazon

If youre wondering how to sell books on Wren for a profit, you have plenty of options. With well-packed, timed, and priced shipments, you can expect to run an FBA-only merchantry smoothly. Likewise, you could try an FBM-FBA or FBA-SFP hybrid model, deciding on a case-by-case understructure how to fulfill each unit.

Luckily, SellerEngine has ripened software products that can help mitigate the forfeit of selling books on Amazon. Whether its sourcing items for FBA/FBM fulfillment via the Profit Bandit scouting app, creating FBA shipments in a wink with SellerEngine Plus, or getting the weightier of your competitors with BuyBoxBuddy, our tools are with you every step of the way.

When you use BuyBoxBuddy, you can see lists of your FBA and FBM items with a simple click. It moreover shows you a dispersal of the items in your FBA inventory, grouped by age, so that you can visualiz and stave storage costs. With insights into Buy Box ownership, price points, and sales velocity, theres nothing stopping you from making a stow selling books on Amazon.